architecture-decision-record

architecture-decision-record is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from The-AI-Directory-Company/agents-and-skills. It costs 35 tokens per session (1,235 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A structured record of an important software architecture choice, including the problem, alternatives, decision, and expected consequences.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to document technology choices, design changes, and adopted patterns in a searchable decision log.
Why use it?
It preserves the reasoning behind technical decisions so future engineers can understand them without repeating the same investigation.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Written for no agent in particular: nothing here depends on one.

Good fit Use it to document technology choices, design changes, and adopted patterns in a searchable decision log.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/the-ai-directory-company/agents-and-skills/architecture-decision-record
Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

Any agent
npx skills add The-AI-Directory-Company/agents-and-skills --skill architecture-decision-record
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/The-AI-Directory-Company/agents-and-skills

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for architecture-decision-record

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/the-ai-directory-company/agents-and-skills/architecture-decision-record/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/the-ai-directory-company/agents-and-skills/architecture-decision-record)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/the-ai-directory-company/agents-and-skills/architecture-decision-record"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/the-ai-directory-company/agents-and-skills/architecture-decision-record/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for architecture-decision-record

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/the-ai-directory-company/agents-and-skills/architecture-decision-record"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/the-ai-directory-company/agents-and-skills/architecture-decision-record.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 35 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,235 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00035 $0.01235
Opus 5 $0.00017 $0.00617
Sonnet 5 $0.00007 $0.00247
Haiku 4.5 $0.00003 $0.00123

Measured 9d ago against content hash 6f034f2123c9, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-12, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

architecture-decision-record scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 9d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

skills/architecture-decision-record/SKILL.md · 107 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 107 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Architecture Decision Record

Before you start

Gather the following from the user:

  1. What decision needs to be recorded? (Technology choice, pattern adoption, architectural change)
  2. What problem triggered this decision? (The constraint, requirement, or pain point)
  3. What options were considered? (At least 2-3 alternatives, including "do nothing")
  4. Who are the stakeholders? (Teams or individuals affected by this decision)
  5. Is the decision already made or still in proposal? (Status: proposed, accepted, deprecated, superseded)

If the user says "we decided to use Kafka," push back: "What problem does Kafka solve that your current approach doesn't? What alternatives did you evaluate? An ADR without alternatives considered is just an announcement."

ADR template

Header

Every ADR starts with a sequential number, title, and metadata.

# ADR-0017: Use PostgreSQL for Event Storage Instead of DynamoDB

- **Status**: Accepted
- **Date**: 2025-01-15
- **Decision makers**: @alice (tech lead), @bob (architect), @carol (DBA)
- **Consulted**: Platform team, Data engineering team
- **Supersedes**: ADR-0008 (if applicable)

Use a descriptive title that states the decision, not the problem. "Use PostgreSQL for Event Storage" is a decision. "Event Storage" is a topic.

1. Context

Describe the situation that requires a decision. Include:

  • The business or technical driver
  • Current state and its limitations
  • Constraints (timeline, budget, team expertise, compliance)
  • Non-functional requirements that influence the decision

Write this for an engineer joining the team 12 months from now. They were not in the room — give them enough context to understand why this decision was even necessary.

2. Options Considered

List every option evaluated, including "do nothing." For each option, describe how it addresses the problem and its tradeoffs.

For each option, include pros, cons, and an estimated cost or effort. Always include "do nothing" as an option — sometimes the cost of change exceeds the cost of the current pain.

Read the full file on GitHub · 107 lines

Files

What ships with it

4 files beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 9d ago First seen · 107 lines · 35 tokens per session scan A 6f034f2123c9

Subscribe to this mod's changes

architecture-decision-record is a skill published in the GitHub repository The-AI-Directory-Company/agents-and-skills (2 stars, last pushed 5mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 35 tokens to every session and 1,235 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-09-03.

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